Greek bond swap bring new downgrade

Greek lawmakers are pushing forward with a raft of measures demanded by eurozone states in exchange for the 130 billion euro rescue.

Meanwhile, the Fitch ratings agency has downgraded the country’s creditworthiness further into junk status — meaning they consider it is deeply unlikely anyone lending money to Greece would get it back.

All the rating agencies are of a similar opinion. They consider Athens deal with private creditors who are taking big losses on their loans means it has “technically” defaulted on its debts.

But Theodore Krintas, Managing Director of Attica Wealth Management, said there is very little chance of an actual default: “The selective default or restrictive default is a technical rating. The financing of the country, and the financing of the banking system of the country, has been already secured by the decision of the Eurogroup a couple of days ago. So the default of the system has been quite a long possibility right now.”

However growing worries that Greece will struggle to meet the demands of the new bailout deal have investors spooked.

The main Athens stock exchange index fell more than nine percent on Tuesday and Wednesday.